Now that Slak has taken away my angry ranting posts, and rightly so because I’m just not angry of a person despite what my appearance, music tastes, and general demeanor would indicate (“denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, hon). So I guess I’d better slink back into my other corner on this fun little prison riot, and that’s being a nerdy nerdy dweeboid with glasses who’s terrified of girls (the last two are actually probably quite accurate). So let’s do it, shall we?

48.9%

This is Toews’s season Corsi-percentage, and while that might not seem all that low, it’s basically 10% below where he’s been the past four years, which is canyon-esque, and the canyon I’m referring to is the one Affleck, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Peter Stormare jumped over in their lunar cruiser (Jesus Fucking Christ why do I know that?).

Now, there are a couple huge caveats to add here (and you can add you’re own terrible movie metaphor in your own head for that one). One, we’re still talking about seven games, a mere drop in the pond. Second, this is actually trending the right way because the first couple games of the season Toews was around 40%. He certainly kicked around the Panthers last night and was better against the Jackets, though that probably falls into the low-hanging fruit category. While Barkov is going to be a great player one day soon, he’s probably not quite ready to go toe-to-toe with the league greats like Tavares or Couturier were earlier in the season.